University of Pittsburgh School of Law
Volume 15, Fall 2010
notes
Center for International Legal Education
From the Director
By Ronald A. Brand
Graduates–which is at the core of CILE
activities—has proved its worth as something far more than an available degree. It
truly is a program and not just a one-year
stop in life for students. It provides both
personal and professional opportunities for
the LLM students, enriches the lives and
educational experiences of our JD students,
and connects us for life to each graduate in
ways that leverage the one-year educational
process into a continuum of educational
development.
I invite you to explore, in the pages that
follow, the ways in which our faculty members and graduates have used CILE and
Pitt Law to provide students with special
opportunities and the ways in which our
students have taken advantage of those
opportunities to make their three years at
Pitt Law a special foundation for a productive future.
Professor Charles Jalloh’s International Criminal Law Seminar in Tanzania at the UN International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
This year marks the 15th anniversary of
the creation of the Center for International
Legal Education (CILE) at the University
of Pittsburgh School of Law. It has been a
wonderful journey so far, marked especially
by students reaching for global experiences and intellectual achievements and
colleagues dedicated to helping them to
extend that reach. Indeed, it is not reputation, building, or endowment that make
an educational institution great; it is the
people with whom you share the experience of learning.
This issue of CILE Notes highlights
those people, both professors and students,
who have made Pitt Law a special place to
pursue international opportunity. That
opportunity truly reaches beyond the class-
room to internships, study abroad, special
lectures, and unique relationships.
Our students have engaged in an impressive set of internships and study abroad
initiatives over the past year. Our faculty
members have worked hard to provide
even more opportunities. With the work
of Assistant Professor Charles Jalloh and
CILE Assistant Director Wes Rist, Pitt
Law has marked its place in the study and
development of international criminal law.
Our graduates (and current students) have
contributed personally to the development
of the law on a global basis. Our efforts to
engage in legal education on a global basis
have been both affirmed and confirmed.
Most importantly, our Master of
Laws (LLM) Program for Foreign Law
www.law.pitt.edu/cile
Inside
International Criminal Law. ......2
The Kosovo Opinion................4
First-Person Accounts................6
Vis Moot-Related Activities. ....10
LL M Class of 2011.................12
Beyond the Classroom: What
Can Your Law Professors Do
for You?.............. Center Spread
Programs and Activities. ........13
Student Activities...................16
Alumni News. .......................18
Faculty Activities....................20
International Criminal Law
Pitt Students Experience Special Opportunities in International Criminal Law
The 2009−10 academic year saw a series of special programs and opportunities for
Pitt Law students in international criminal law.
U.S. War Crimes Ambassador
Delivers Statement on
International Criminal Justice
Summer Internship
at the ICTR
Stephen Rapp, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes, spoke at the law school on
January 28, 2010, about “The Role of the United States in International Criminal Justice.”
His talk was the first public statement of the Obama administration on the International
Criminal Court (ICC) and the level of involvement the administration planned to pursue both at the ICC and in international criminal matters in general. Following his lecture, students in Professor Charles Jalloh’s International Criminal Law Seminar joined
Ambassador Rapp for lunch.
Along with Holly Christie (JD '11), I spent
two months this summer working with
the Office of the Registrar at the ICTR in
Arusha, Tanzania. The ICTR is an international court set up by the United Nations
Security Council to prosecute those most
responsible for the 1994 genocide in
Rwanda. The registrar is charged with
managing the operations of the tribunal;
providing legal and judicial support services
to the chambers and the prosecution; and
communicating with individuals, organizations, countries, and other UN organizations on behalf of the tribunal.
I arrived in Arusha shortly after the arrest
of ICTR defense counsel Peter Erlinder by
Rwandan authorities on charges of denying the 1994 genocide. Working with the
UN Office of Legal Affairs in New York,
we reviewed the publications, public statements, and court records that were being
used by the Rwandan prosecutor general to
support the charges, in order to determine
Continued on page 3
2
Ambassador Stephen Rapp (center) with (L to R) Professors Harry Flechtner and Charles Jalloh,
Dean Mary Crossley, and Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg
cile notes 2 010
University of Pittsburgh School of Law
Center for International Legal Education
Ronald A. Brand, Director
D. Wes Rist, Assistant Director
Gina Huggins, Program Administrator
Please direct all correspondence to:
University of Pittsburgh
School of Law
Center for International Legal Education
318 Barco Law Building
3900 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Phone: 412-648-7023, Fax: 412-648-2648
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: www.law.pitt.edu/cile
By Andrew Morgan, JD '11
Chief Prosecutor Justice Hassan Jallow
Speaks on UNICTR Challenges
On September 11, 2009, chief
prosecutor of the United Nations
International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda (ICTR) Justice Hassan
Jallow spoke at the law school on
“The Contribution of the Rwanda
Tribunal to International Law and
the Challenges of Completion: The
Prosecutor’s Perspective.” Following
the lecture, Justice Jallow met with
students at an informal reception.
ICTR Chief Prosecutor Justice Hassan Jallow
with Pitt Law students
International Criminal Law
Internship continued
the degree to which UN immunities would attach to a member
of the independent Defence
Counsel Association.
One constant challenge for
the ICTR has been finding
a permanent home for those
accused of genocide who have
been acquitted by the tribunal.
The UN provides accommodations for the acquitted persons
in Arusha pending their placement, but this is not a permanent solution. As they have been
credibly accused of participating in the 1994 genocide, the
acquitted persons feel that they
would be unable to safely return
to Rwanda. Finally, there are
rules prohibiting countries from
extending refugee status to those
charged with genocide (leaving aside the fact that they’ve
been acquitted of the crime).
We reviewed the bases for the
acquittals in search of an exemplary candidate for reconsidering the refugee rules; drafted
correspondence to the UN
Human Rights Commission,
the UN Office of Legal Affairs,
and the Rwandan prosecutor
general; and advised the registrar
on how to respond to visa, asylum, and immigration requests
made by the acquitted persons.
My experience with the ICTR
has shown me the wide array of
roles that make international
courts possible, beyond those of
the judges and the prosecutors.
The tribunal is a multinational,
multiethnic, multilingual,
and multidisciplinary body
and requires careful attention
and hard work to ensure that
the court functions smoothly.
Moreover, living in Arusha is an
excellent excuse to learn Swahili,
drink Maasai blood milk, look
at animals that could eat you
for lunch, and eat most of your
own meals without the benefit
of silverware.
Students Spend Spring Break
at the UN Tribunal in Tanzania
Evelyn Kamau (LLM ’02) (front right) joins Professor Charles Jalloh’s class during their visit to her workplace,
the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
After his visit to Pitt Law, Justice Hassan Jallow, chief prosecutor at the ICTR, arranged with Professor
Charles Jalloh and Pitt Law graduate Evelyn Kamau (LLM ’02), now at the ICTR, for 11 students in
Professor Jalloh’s International Criminal Law Seminar to visit the ICTR in Arusha, Tanzania. While
there, the students visited various departments at the tribunal, observed court proceedings, and spoke
personally with Justice Jallow. The students also had the chance to observe the East African Community,
a regional organization dealing with economic and security issues for eastern African nations.
CILE and Global Solutions Education FundPittsburgh Create First International Criminal
Court High School Moot Competition
On April 9, 2010, CILE assisted Global Solutions Education Fund-Pittsburgh in founding the first
Moot International Criminal Court program for high school students in the United States. The
program put high school students in the role of appellate attorneys arguing a hypothetical case in
front of the International Criminal Court. Students were provided with a set of facts, a hypothetical
problem, and the relevant legal research, all prepared by CILE Assistant Director Wes Rist. They
then developed a legal argument, wrote legal memorials, and presented their arguments in front of
a panel of judges. Global Solutions Executive
Director Daniel Giovannelli (JD ’08) arranged
training sessions for high school teachers and
coaches to give students the skills they needed
to compete. Students were scored on the quality
of their written memorial as well as their oral
arguments. Pitt Law students served as volunteer judges for the competition.
Given the enthusiastic response from the
high school students, teachers, and coaches,
and the Pitt Law students involved as judges,
CILE and Global Solutions Pittsburgh are
planning to expand the program. The 2011
competition problem will be created by the
CILE Assistant Director Wes Rist (center), Andrew
winner of a writing contest open to all Pitt Law Morgan (JD ’11) (left), and Steven Salas (JD ’11)
students. The contest will include a cash prize (right) serve as judges in the first ICC high school
as well as a seat on the final round judges panel. moot competition.
3
First-Person Accounts:
The Kosovo Opinion
Pitt Law Graduate and Student Experience ICJ Opinion Results Firsthand
4
Vjosa Osmani (LLM '05) (right) with the Kosovo legal team on their way out of the Peace Palace
in The Hague after the announcement of the Advisory Opinion
Representing Kosovo before the
International Court of Justice
By Vjosa Osmani (LLM ’05, JSD Candidate), Chief of Staff
and Senior Advisor on Legal and International Affairs
to the President of Kosovo
On July 22, 2010, at about 2:30 p.m.,
along with a few other members of the
Kosovo delegation, I approached the gates
of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
in The Hague. The guards asked for the
green badges that had been prepared for
the delegations, and we showed them. Our
badge said: Authors of Kosovo’s Declaration
of Independence. As we walked through
the yard of the court, hundreds of journalists from around the world surrounded us,
taking countless pictures and asking too
many questions all at the same time. The
interest was enormous; the world court was
publishing its opinion on whether Kosovo’s
Declaration of Independence violated international law. At that moment, I recalled that
just a little more than a decade ago, I, just
like all Kosovo Albanians, did not have the
right to education. Going to school meant
risking our lives. Not too long ago, just
thinking of becoming a lawyer seemed like
an impossible dream. But on July 22, 2010,
I was a member of the legal team representing my country before the International
Court of Justice.
Once we entered the court, delegations
from all around the world approached us to
wish us the best of luck. We felt blessed to
once again be reassured of the support of
the democratic nations around the globe for
our cause. As we sat to wait for the 15 judges
of the world’s highest judicial institution, I
was thinking about the many people who
had told me that being at the International
Court of Justice is the peak of any lawyer’s
career. It was the top of the top. No lawyer
could wish for more. Indeed, looking at
the courtroom architecture alone gives you
that feeling. And probably this is what most
lawyers would feel at that moment: the
pride of representing a party in the world’s
highest court. But for me, as a member of
the Kosovo delegation, it was a different
feeling. We were not there to represent
just any party. We were there representing
the right of the people of Kosovo to live in
freedom and independence, and we were
conscious that the eyes and hearts of more
than 2 million Kosovars were with us during
those moments.
The president of the International Court
of Justice read the court’s explicit and clear
opinion. It concluded that “the adoption
of the Declaration of Independence of
17 February 2008 did not violate general
international law, Security Council resolution 1244 (1999) or the Constitutional
Framework. Consequently the adoption
of that declaration did not violate any
applicable rule of international law.” It also
confirmed our position that “the authors of
the Declaration of Independence … acted
together in their capacity as representatives of the people of Kosovo.” The court
agreed with us on all counts. While it is
easy to explain what I felt at that moment
as a lawyer, it is impossible to explain what
I felt as a Kosovar.
As we were leaving the courtroom,
the countless messages that arrived from
all over the world included the words:
“Congratulations. You have worked so
hard on this.” I had indeed spent immeasurable hours of work for almost two years
to prepare the arguments of Kosovo for the
advisory proceedings, but the first thing
that came to my mind at that moment was
a saying that shaped the future of another
freedom-loving country, the United States,
which stood by Kosovo at all times: “Let
every nation know, whether it wishes us
well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear
any burden, meet any hardship, support any
friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival
and the success of liberty.”
Continued on page 5
First-Person Accounts: The Kosovo Opinion
Kosovo’s Independence: A Ground-Floor Perspective
By Amelia Mathias, Class of 2011
At 3 p.m. Kosovo time
on July 22, 2010, the
International Court of
Justice read out its advisory judgment that
Kosovo’s Declaration of
Independence was not
contrary to international
law. The vote was 10 to 4
with one abstention, and
the countries who voted
against included such judicial luminaries as Russia,
China, and Venezuela.
I was watching the judgment, overlaid in Albanian,
on the eighth floor of the
government building, surrounded by everyone in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(MFA) who hadn’t fled the
heat of Prishtina for a beach
in Montenegro or Albania.
The entire room went
crazy—those who were
not calling ambassadors
in Riyadh and Canberra
Amelia Mathias (JD '11) (left) with the Heinz Ketchup Society of Prishtina
were spraying those on the
phone with champagne.
This opinion, which had stalled many again, we were the only people celebrating.
states from recognizing Kosovo until the Though the decision was a good one for
decision came down, will help Kosovo Kosovo, and though an adverse decision
continued
gain entrance into the United Nations. could have been disastrous for this fledgIt will help Kosovo to be recognized by ling state, the decision itself changes very
This quote from President Kennedy
more countries, gain more foreign invest- little about the internal affairs of Kosovo.
embodies what the people of Kosovo
ment, and hopefully open state-to-state A vote in the General Assembly doesn’t
feel, and they have expressed this through
talks with Serbia.
their elected representatives and in
change the unemployment rate. A letter
But as excited as my colleagues at of recognition from Burundi doesn’t halt
the Declaration of Independence. The
the MFA were, for most of the rest of rampant corruption. The decision of 15
International Court of Justice agreed with
Prishtina, it was just another Thursday. people in black robes in The Hague doesn’t
the people of Kosovo: the Declaration of
After we had sprayed all the champagne solve the problem of 120,000 angry Serbs
Independence of 17 February 2008 did
we could, we stood by the windows on the living across the Ibar River in Mitrovica.
not violate international law. For most
eighth floor, puzzled, as to why no masses In fact, it compounds it.
lawyers around the world involved
of people took to the streets to celebrate.
in such a case, a favorable decision in
Kosovo has a bright future, which is
There were some cars honking, and some only enhanced by the ICJ opinion. There
the ICJ could be described as the best
people waving Kosovo flags, but mostly it is still much work to be done, but with a
moment in their career, but for this lawwas just another Thursday.
yer from Kosovo, it can only be described
young population and the desire to prove
When we went out that night with themselves, Kosovo is one step further on
as the best moment of my life.
the MFA, we celebrated our victory, but its way.
Representing Kosovo
5
First-Person Accounts:
Summer Experiences
The following first-person accounts provide representative samples of the experiences
of Pitt Law students during summer 2010.
Italy, Art Crime, and a Good Summer
By Torry Hullum, Class of 2012
I left Pittsburgh on May 24 without a clue
as to what, or even who, would greet me
in Rome. After a two-hour drive north
from the Rome airport with a fellow U.S.
intern, we arrived in Amelia, Italy—a small
yet diverse town of about 8,000 residents.
Amelia is famous both for being one of
the longest continually occupied towns in
Italy and for being home to Italy’s oldest
residents. My experience in Italy was an
eye-opening mix of sightseeing and legal
research, exploration, and discovery.
The Association for Research into
6
Crimes Against Art (ARCA) is an international nonprofit think tank and consultancy
organization. ARCA works to curb art crime
by educating cultural heritage professionals
and advocating for more effective security
methods to protect art and antiquities.
With other legal interns, I was given background information on how survivors of the
Holocaust filed claims to recover their stolen
property taken by the Gestapo. After this
initial introduction, the six of us were tasked
with determining how American museums
could more effectively mirror other coun-
tries’ strict acquisition policies in order to
prevent stolen works from being owned
by museums instead of being returned to
their rightful owners.
My internship helped build my confidence in legal research, broaden my
understanding of topics related to art law,
and increase my interest in public interest
law. More importantly, the entire experience made me appreciate individual rights
and acknowledge the freedoms I have and
those that were stripped away from so
many others.
Canadian Mining and the Social Justice Committee
By Megan McKee, Class of 2012
In May, I began working for the Social
Justice Committee (SJC) of Montreal as a
corporate accountability intern. The SJC
is an independent human rights organization that promotes education and advocacy
in areas of global poverty and inequality.
With respect to corporate accountability,
the SJC is particularly involved with the
Canadian mining sector and its activities
in Central America. Through working
with the SJC, I was not only exposed to
domestic Canadian law governing mining and extractive companies but also
to international agreements such as the
Dominican Republic-Central America
Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and
the International Labor OrganizationConvention 169 concerning indigenous
rights, and the role of both of these in the
legal systems of Guatemala, Honduras,
and El Salvador.
Canada is home to more than 75 percent with the SJC to advocate for this bill, I
of the world’s largest mining and extraction increased my understanding of the curcompanies. However, the existing mecha- rent legal reality and the process through
nisms to ensure that these corporations, which to change it.
The SJC also works in solidarity with
which receive support from the government
of Canada, act in compliance with interna- human rights organizations in Guatemala,
tional environmental best practices and with Honduras, and El Salvador. Through
Canada’s commitments to human rights are communicating with these groups, I
toothless at best and non-existent at worst. gained a better impression of the overall
The SJC is currently advocating for passage human rights situation and the impact of
of Bill C-300. This private member’s bill, Canadian mining on it.
presently before the Canadian Parliament,
seeks to create a mechanism that would
allow for the filing of complaints against
Canadian extractive companies operating in developing countries if the
companies are believed not to be in
compliance with agreed upon inter2010–11
national environmental and human
rights standards. Through working
Copresident: Rhiannon Kelso
Copresident: Uzoma Ogbonna
Secretary/
Treasurer:
Marie Brown
International Law
Society
First-Person Accounts: Summer Experiences
Language Study and an Amicus Brief in Baku
By Sarah Paulsworth, Class of 2012
This summer I worked as resident director in the Critical Languages Scholarship
(CLS) Program in Baku, Azerbaijan
(Azerbaijani Language Program). CLS is
an intensive summer language and cultural immersion program intended to
expand the number of Americans studying and mastering “critical need” foreign
languages. The program is an initiative
of the United States Department of State
Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
and is administered by the Council of
American Overseas Research Centers and
the American Councils for International
Education. In this capacity, I oversaw
program finances; wrote program and
financial reports; served as liaison between
Washington, D.C., staff and program partners in Azerbaijan; advised CLS participants
on cultural assimilation and second-language acquisition and safety; and enforced
program rules and regulations.
While in Baku, I also independently
researched and composed a Third-Party
Intervention (amicus brief ) on the case
of imprisoned Azeri journalist Eynulla
Fatullayev, which will be delivered to the
European Court of Human Rights in early
September. Fatullayev, who previously
ran the Realny Azerbayjan and Gundalik
Azerbayjan newspapers, is an outspoken
critic of the Azeri government who has
been imprisoned on various charges since
April 2007. He is internationally recog-
nized as a prisoner of conscience. The
Third Party Intervention examines persecution against Fatullayev including a
new criminal conviction for possession of
drugs. This conviction threatens to keep
Fatullayev in prison, despite a European
Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decision of 22 April 2010 that Azerbaijan
“shall secure the applicant’s immediate
release.” Additionally, the Third Party
Intervention addresses the ECHR’s ability
to issue a decision calling for Azerbaijan
to secure Fatullayev’s immediate release
and Azerbaijan’s obligation to execute the
ECHR’s decision of 22 April 2010.
Summer at the Max Planck Institute
By Andrew Vogeler, Class of 2012 and 2010 Nordenberg Fellow
I arrived at the Max Planck Institute for
Comparative and International Private
Law in Hamburg, Germany, ready to get
a lay of the land in issues of European
jurisdiction and choice of law with regard
to commercial transactions. In practice,
private law on the international level has
many layers to navigate, including international agreements, national law, and often
subnational regional law. In addition, the
European Union is somewhere in between:
created out of conventions, but with certain competencies akin to a national state.
Of course studying the law in Europe
is somewhat different than in the United
States because of the long-term structural
transformation of the legal and political
systems within the European Union. I thus
made it a priority to read overview texts
and locate more in-depth articles on the
changes in legal culture that correspond to
the structural development.
In a conversation with Professor Jürgen
Basedow, I was introduced to the Common
Frame of Reference (CFR) and the ongoing projects designed to build a foundation
for harmonization of European contract
law. I decided the CFR was a perfect
topic to focus the rest of my work because
it represents a promising avenue for future
Europeanization of a topic that is of prime
importance to me and because it practically illustrates the challenges associated
with navigating the layers of private law in
Europe—an early theme of my project. The
CFR inherently invokes arguments about
the form future legal systems should take
in Europe, which expresses much about
how further harmonization efforts might
proceed.
The remainder of my project consisted of
familiarizing myself with the various working groups involved in the Joint Network
on European Private Law, their projects,
publications, goals, and how they fit into
the broader project of developing the CFR.
In particular, I looked at the Common Core
Group, the Insurance Group, the Acquis
Group, and the AHC-SLC Group. To
supplement these sources, I also collected
evaluative sources that comment on these
projects and provide policy and empirical
arguments for pursuing different options
for harmonization, such as a European Civil
Code or an Optional Instrument.
Beyond the scope of my own project, I
had the privilege of getting to know many
researchers from all over the globe, which
has greatly widened my understanding of
various perspectives with regard to law,
legal education, and culture among other
things. I also attended Aktuelle Stunde
meetings, which are weekly presentations and discussions led by scholars at
the Institute on a topic of their research.
These meetings addressed many issues and
perspectives that have enriched the way I
think about comparative law and gave me
valuable experience engaging with professionals from other backgrounds.
Looking forward, I already have had the
chance to begin applying the fruits of my
project in new opportunities. For instance,
I recently published an article in JURIST,
an online legal news publication out of
the University of Pittsburgh, relating my
experience and some of my findings to a
wider audience. I also will have a chance to
apply my research in an upcoming paper I
will write as part of a certificate program
in West European Studies on the nexus
between contract law harmonization and
its economic implications for the development of the internal market.
7
First-Person Accounts: Summer Experiences
A Summer at the European Union Commission Legal Services
By Morgan Kronk, Class of 2011 and 2010 Nordenberg Fellow
8
As the Nordenberg fellow at the European
Union Commission, I had the unique
opportunity to gain, from inside experience, a greater understanding of the
functioning of the European Union (EU).
The Legal Service of the Commission
is comparatively a blend of the attorney
general’s office and in-house counsel for
the “executive” branch of the European
Union. Two primary responsibilities of the
Legal Service are to intervene as amicus
curiae in preliminary question proceedings and pursue infringement actions. In
preliminary question proceedings, member
states pose questions on the implementation of EU law that arise in national
cases to the European Court of Justice.
In infringement proceedings, if the commission believes that a member state is
not in compliance with an aspect of EU
law, it may decide to pursue legal action
and bring an infringement case before the
European Court of Justice.
The Legal Service is divided into numerous teams that deal with specific aspects of
EU law. As a new intern, I was assigned to
SOC-the Employment and Social Affairs,
Education and Culture, Health, and
Consumer Protection team. In particular,
I worked under the direction of Michel
van Beek, who covered gender discrimination as well as general labor law. I drafted
the opinion of the Commission for several
preliminary question proceedings and for
one infringement case and assisted in the
preparation of oral arguments before several hearings. Union labor law is extremely
interesting because the EU has some competency, but it is almost all through directives, which leave much of the discretion for
implementation to the individual member
state. This creates an interesting and active
tension between the EU institutions and
the member states.
I had the opportunity to visit the
European Court of Justice in Luxembourg
on two occasions during the summer. On
the first visit, I was thrilled to discover
that I could see the Court from my hotel
window! I accompanied my advisor to
one of his cases, which happened to be
in front of the Grande Chambre, which
means the hearing took place in front of 13
sitting justices rather than the more typical panel of three or five justices. Later, I
traveled to Luxembourg with several other
interns and attended a hearing before the
General Court.
To be an American at the European
Union institutions was an incredible experience. To directly study EU directives,
analyze the jurisprudence, and personally
see the tensions between the institutions
and member states gave an invaluable
depth to my study of international law.
Working for the President of Kosovo
By Anne Thibadeau, Class of 2011
This past summer, I interned with Korab
Sejdiu, legal advisor to the president of
Kosovo, and Vjosa Osmani, chief advisor
to the president. The Kosovo government
is still in transition in some respects, and
this experience allowed me to work at the
top level of the government, live in Kosovo
prior to the International Court of Justice
advisory opinion, observe and participate
in state building efforts, and work on a
constitutional case brought against the
president.
The work in the president’s office was
uneven. Some assignments required working weekends and some days I could easily
leave before four. The work also was not
purely legal. It was largely oriented toward
diplomacy and the political aspects surrounding the position of the president of
Kosovo. On days when I was not writing
a memo or reading over legislation, I was
writing letters to various world leaders and
trying to follow important world events.
I even had the opportunity to work on a
speech given by the president.
When a case was filed against the president in the Constitutional Court, I was
assigned to work on the reply and write
a memo covering an interpretation of the
constitutional provision implicated, using
American cases and comparing wording
used in other constitutions. The memo was
complete and on my computer one Saturday
evening, although I decided against sending
it in because I wanted to reread and edit it
with fresh eyes the next day.
To celebrate, my roommate and I went
out to see Robin Hood, the only American
movie option, with a daily showtime of
10 p.m. Upon our return, we found that a
number of items, including my computer,
had been stolen from our apartment. On
Sunday, I went to the president’s office and
rewrote the memo.
The memo and apartment break-in story
is illustrative of my time in Kosovo. It was
an amazing work experience. My roommate and I never stopped laughing and
even joked about the method that the
police used to look for fingerprints around
the apartment. Getting through the basics
each day seemed somehow more difficult
than in the United States, but everything
also felt more optimistic. And when
things went wrong, such as frequent bouts
of food poisoning, it frankly did not matter and certainly did not slow us down.
I learned a lot from doing the memo, too,
when Advisor Sejdiu spent an hour with
me discussing persuasive writing.
Overall, the summer was fantastic.
I was given the opportunity to discuss legal
writing with someone who has devoted
much of his professional career to writing
persuasively. The work was once in a lifetime, and Kosovo is a truly unique place.
FONDAZIONE FLAMINIA
Ravenna
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM
UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA
Sede di Ravenna
Facoltà di Giurisprudenza
International
SUMMERSCHOOL
“INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL CONTRACTS”
Ravenna,6-10
7-11 June
June2011
2010
Ravenna,
9
www.fondazioneflaminia.it
This event has been approved by the Pennsylvania Continuing
Legal Education Board for up to
twenty-two (22) hours of substantive and two (2) hours of ethics credit. For further information,
www.unibo.it/Portale/Offerta+formativa/Summer+and+winter+school/default.htm
please call 412-648-7023 or e-mail [email protected].
www.law.pitt.edu/cile
Vis moot-Related Activities
CILE Continues Use of Vis Moot as Educational Platform
Third CLDP Contract Allows CILE Support of
Legal Education in the Arabian Peninsula
10
CILE partnered with the U.S. Department
o f C o m m e r c e’s C o m m e r c i a l L a w
Development Program (CLDP) for a third
year to assist law schools in the Arabian
Peninsula in developing and expanding
their commercial law curriculum. As in
past years, the program used the Willem C.
Vis International Commercial Arbitration
Moot Competition (Vis Moot) as a catalyst
for work in commercial law and arbitration.
In 2009–10, the CLDP project added the
United Arab Emirates University (UAEU)
to the group that includes the University
of Bahrain (UB) and Sultan Qaboos
University (SQU) in Oman.
Pitt Law JD students Marc Coda, Rick
Grubb, and Kerry Ann Stare traveled with
CILE Director and Professor Ronald A.
Brand to the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
in October, where they provided training
on international commercial law and arbitration and assisted the UAEU faculty in
selecting students for their Vis Moot team.
Upon their return, Coda, Grubb, and Stare
each continued to work with one of the Gulf
region Vis teams to develop their written
submissions for the Vis Moot.
In February, the three JD students again
accompanied Professor Brand to Al Ain,
UAE, to assist the UAEU, UB, and SQU
Professor Brand, Kerry Ann Stare (JD ‘10), Rick Grubb (JD ‘10), and Marc Coda (JD ‘10) with
members of the Vis teams from UAE, Oman, and Bahrain universities
teams in preparation for the oral presentations at the moot. Professor Teresa Brostoff
joined the group later to teach the English
for Lawyers course to a larger group of
UAEU students. In March, Coda, Grubb,
and Stare met their respective teams in
Vienna, where they provided administrative
and instructional assistance throughout the
moot competition.
CILE’s work with CLDP has resulted in
the first Gulf region teams
in the Vis Moot. While
in Vienna, those teams
joined the other students
in the Pitt Vis Moot consortium, a collection of
10 universities from what
is now seven countries
(Bahrain, Kosovo, Oman,
Serbia, Ukraine, the UAE,
and the United States),
that meet in Vienna several days before the Vis
Professor Brand and Kerry Ann Stare (JD ‘10) enjoy a traditional
Moot competition started
bedouin meal in the UAE while in that country to assist the UAE
to engage in one last preUniversity team in preparing for the Vis Moot.
moot competition. The
consortium has become an excellent tool
for allowing competitors to work together
and follow each other’s progress throughout
the Vis Moot. The 2010 consortium dinner, hosted by CILE, included more than
60 students, professors, and friends, proving that hard work can be accompanied by
pleasant experiences.
As with most CILE programs, the CLDP
partnership is geared to create a self-sustaining result in the targeted universities. CILE
routinely recruits for both its U.S. Law &
Language Program and its LLM Program
from the Pitt Vis consortium. This year
will see the addition of Qatar University
to the CLDP program. Once again, the
past year’s Vis team members will have the
opportunity to gain experience by training
the CLDP partner universities, providing a
unique experience that takes legal education
out of the classroom and into the real world.
In 2011, this process will include the first
all-Arab pre-moot, to be held in Bahrain in
March 2011 prior to the April competition
in Vienna.
Vis Moot-Related Activities
Visiting Professors
Add Diversity
In 2009–10, Pitt Law students benefitted from a variety of courses by visiting professors designed to expand their
access to international and comparative law. Courses included European
Union Law, Comparative Conflict of
Laws in Contractual and Non-contractual
Obligations, Criminal Law Aspects of the
European Court of Human Rights, and
State Building and the Law: The Kosovo
Experience.
In 2010–11, three courses will be offered
in the fall: Professors Milena Đorđević
and Vladimir Pavić, from the University
of Belgrade, Serbia, and Professor Chiara
Giovannucci Orlandi from the University
of Bologna, Italy, will teach International
Commercial Arbitration; Professor Marco
Torsello from the University of Bologna will
teach European Private Law: Comparative
& European Contract Law; and Professor
Matthias Grabmair, from Germany, will
teach Public International Law Advocacy.
In the spring, Professors Thomas Möllers
and Volker Behr from the University of
Augsburg, Germany, will teach European
Union Law.
Milena Ðordevic (LLM ’02), now a lecturer with the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law,
teaches international commercial arbitration at Pitt in fall 2010.
Croatia Summer Institute a Success
In July 2010, Pitt Law joined with the
Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law
Center and the University of Zagreb
Faculty of Law to launch a new summer
law program in Croatia: The Institute of
International Commercial Law & Dispute
Resolution. This four-week program,
Pitt Vis Team Advances to 64-Team
Final Rounds for Second Straight Year
The 2010 Pitt Law team of McKean
Evans, Richard Kyle, Kristine Long,
and Amelia Mathias joined students
from 253 law schools from 62 countries in March 2010 to participate
in the 18th Annual Willem C. Vis
International Commercial Arbitration
Moot in Vienna. For the second year
in a row, the Pitt team advanced into
the round of finals competition. Prior
to the competition in Vienna, the team
also participated in the University of
Belgrade pre-moot competition and
arbitration conference and engaged in
informal practice arguments in Zagreb,
Croatia, with the University of Zagreb
and Touro Law Center.
(L to R) The Pitt Law 2010 Vis team: Richard Kyle
(JD ’11), Kristine Long (JD ’11), McKean Evans
(JD ’10), Professor Harry Flechtner, Professor
Ronald A. Brand, and Amelia Mathias (JD ’11)
taught by leaders in the field including Pitt
Law Professors Ronald A.Brand and Harry
Flechtner, provided a broad introduction
to international business transactions followed by a focused examination of the laws
governing international sales of goods and
international commercial arbitration. After
three weeks of doctrinal instruction, students developed and applied skills through
a weeklong simulation of a dispute.
Ten Pitt Law students joined 21 other
students from the United States, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Brazil, Croatia, India,
Kosovo, Oman, and Tunisia for the inaugural program, with Professor Jack Graves
of Touro serving as the program director.
Many of these students will use this experience as preparation for participation in the
Willem C. Vis International Commercial
Arbitration Moot Competition. Mary
Crossley, dean of Pitt’s law school, said of
the program, “Partnering with two fine
law faculties to present this collaborative
Croatian summer program gives Pitt Law
and the Center for International Legal
Education a wonderful opportunity to build
on our established strength in the area of
international sales law and our experience
in coaching students who are competing in
the Vis Moot competition.”
11
Kaltrina Ahmeti (Kosovo) received her
bachelor’s degree in law from the University
of Prishtina Faculty of Law in Prishtina,
Kosovo, in 2008, where she is pursuing a
master’s degree and was a member of the
2008 Jessup and the 2010 Vis international
moot teams. She was a project assistant at
the Kosovo Law Center in 2007−08. In fall
2008, she was an International Connection
fellow and graduate research assistant
at Georgia State University College of
Law, where she also interned at Insley &
Race LLC. She worked most recently as
a legal officer for the Liquidation Review
Committee at the Privatization Agency of
Kosovo. Ahmeti is the recipient of a tuition
fellowship from the University Center for
International Studies.
12
Abdullah Alaoudh (Saudi Arabia)
received his bachelor’s degree in law from
Al Qassim University in Buraydah, Saudi
Arabia, in 2006. He studied in the master’s
degree program of comparative law at the
International Islamic University in Malaysia
in 2009 and completed the English as a
Second Language Program at Duquesne
University in 2010. Alaoudh has published
articles in Arab newspapers on cultural
matters, developmental projects in Islamic
law, and critiques of current legal practice
in Saudi Arabia.
Prajitha Ganga (India) received her bachelor’s degrees in arts and law in 2001 and
2003 respectively, and a master’s degree in
law in 2005 from the University of Kerala,
LLM Class of 2011
India. She worked as an assistant attorney
at the Trivandrum District Court in Kerala,
where she handled civil and criminal legal
issues from 2005 until 2009. She is a recipient of a CILE/Alcoa tuition fellowship.
Anna Heatherington (Russia) received her
bachelor’s degree in law and a certificate of
foreign relations expertise with knowledge
of foreign languages from the Moscow
State Institute of International Relations
University in 2000. She joined KPMG in
Moscow as a legal advisor in 2000. In 2004,
Heatherington moved to Italy to work for
Pavia e Ansaldo in Milan as an associate. She
received a certificate in Italian as a foreign
language from the University for Foreigners
in Siena, Italy, in December 2004. In 2006,
she returned to Moscow to work as an inhouse lawyer at Media-Market-Saturn.
Shafiq Jamoos (Palestine) received his
bachelor’s degree in law from An-Najah
National University, Palestine, in 2010. He
has worked as a program coordinator for
the nonprofit organization Environment
First and as a moot court organizer at the
An-Najah National University. Jamoos is
the recipient of a Palestinian Rule of Law
Fellowship Program, which is administered
by the Open Society Institute.
Sigee Koech (Kenya) received her bachelor’s degree in law from Moi University in
Eldoret, Kenya, in 2008. After graduation,
she worked as a legal assistant at Hamilton,
Harrison, & Matthews in Nairobi, Kenya.
Koech is the recipient of
a tuition fellowship from
the University Center
for International Studies
and a Franklin West Inc.
housing fellowship.
Each year, CILE takes the LLM class to Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic
Fallingwater, a national historic landmark. It’s a great way to start
the academic year.
Ziva Lederman (Israel)
received a bachelor’s
degree in criminology from the Bar-Ilan
University in RamatGan, Israel, in 1999 and
a bachelor’s degree in
law from the University
of Manchester in the
United Kingdom in
2000. She interned at the Israeli Prosecution
Office for the south county in 2000
and worked as an attorney at Mekler’s
Law Office in Ashkelon, Israel. In 2002,
Lederman became a prosecutor at the Israeli
District Attorney’s Office and was promoted
to vice head of the prosecution department
in 2005.
Cristina Mariottini (Italy) received her
bachelor’s degree in law from Universita
Degli Studi di Milano in Milan, Italy, in
2006. She will complete her PhD in private
international law from the University of
Milan in 2010. Mariottini has been a visiting scholar at Pitt since March 2008. Her
work has yielded publications in private
international law. She is the recipient of a
CILE/Alcoa Scholarship.
Judith Johana Pool Narrias (Chile)
received her bachelor’s degree in law from
the Universidad Nacional Andres Bello in
Santiago, Chile, in 1995. She worked as a
paralegal at Zenon Garcia Law Firm from
1997 to 1999 and then as an attorney at
Legal Chile LLC from 2002 to 2003. Pool
Narrias received a paralegal certificate in
2006 from Emory University. In 2007,
she worked as a law clerk for Kapoor &
Associates in Atlanta, Ga. From 2008 to
2009, she was a paralegal at Adorno & Yoss.
Maria Clara Pujol (Argentina) received
her bachelor’s degree in law from the
University of Buenos Aires in 2007. In
2003, she became a paralegal at Lynch &
Associates in Buenos Aires, where, in 2007,
she joined the firm as an attorney.
Marta Shchavurska (Ukraine) received her
bachelor’s degree in law from the National
University of Kiev-Mohyla Academy in
Kiev, Ukraine in 2010. She was a member
of the Kiev-Mohyla team for the 2009
Tedlers International Law Moot Court
and the 2010 Willem C. Vis International
Commercial Arbitration Moot. She held
several short-term internships at local law
firms in Kiev while studying for her law
degree. Shchavurska is the recipient of a
CILE/Alcoa fellowship and a Franklin West
Inc. housing fellowship.
University of Pittsburgh School of Law
Beyond the Classroom:
Center for International Legal Education
What Can Your Law Professors Do for You?
At Pitt Law’s Center for International Legal Education (CILE), there’s something more.
The strength of any law school lies primarily in its teachers and its students. The value of
a legal education depends largely on what each student gains from his or her three years of
engagement with that community. Thus, any student considering law school should ask what
a particular school’s faculty can provide for that student.
At the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, our faculty members produce high-quality
scholarship on a wide variety of compelling international and comparative legal issues. They
combine their scholarship with experience in international organizations, government agencies, prominent nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and private practice in ways that
enhance their classroom teaching.
But most importantly, CILE and Pitt Law professors create opportunities for students to engage
in important experiences beyond the classroom. Examples of such opportunities arranged for
Pitt students in summer 2010 include the following:
Azerbaijan
U.S. Department of State
Critical Languages Program
Belgium
Institute for European Studies
European Commission Legal
Services
Canada
Social Justice Committee of
Montreal
China
Peking University
ZhongQiGuoSheng Law
Firm
Germany
Max Planck Institute for
Comparative and Private
International Law
Rödl & Partner
Ireland
Mexico
Diaspora Women’s Initiative RB Abogados Law Offices
Free Legal Advice Centre
Universidad Anáhuac
Italy
New York City
Association for Research into UN Office of Legal Affairs
Crimes Against Art
Palau
Kosovo
Office of the Attorney General
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Sweden
Office of the Legal Advisor to Westinghouse Electric
the President
Company, LLC
Office of the Legal Advisor to Tanzania
the Prime Minister
UN International Criminal
U.S. Agency for International
Tribunal for Rwanda
Development
United Kingdom
Luxembourg
13 Old Square Chambers
European Court of Auditors Washington, D.C.
Maryland
Commercial Law
Center for Disaster and
Development Program
Humanitarian Assistance
Medicine
For more examples of opportunities that Pitt Law professors provide for students, read on … .
www.law.pitt.edu/cile
David
Barnard
is a professor at
t h e Un i v e r s i t y o f
Pittsburgh School of
Medicine and affiliated
faculty in the School of Law, with a JD and a
PhD in religion and society.
has published extensively on end‑of‑life issues
and ethical and legal issues facing medical
practitioners and is currently focusing his
research on international human rights law
and the health and status of women.
creates special opportunities for students
through his position as director of the Global
Health and Human Rights Track of the
Health Law Certificate Program at Pitt Law
by identifying and developing positions for
students both domestically and internationally that focus on global health issues.
Ronald A.
Brand
John
Burkoff
is a professor, Faculty
Distinguished Research
Scholar, and director of
CILE who also directs
the LL.M. Program for Foreign Law Graduates
and the International and Comparative Law
Certificate Program. He has taught and
lectured in many countries and was a mem‑
ber of the U.S. delegation that negotiated
the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of
Court Agreements. He will give the 2011
Hague Academy of International Law Course
on Transaction Planning Using Rules on
Jurisdiction and Judgments Recognition.
is a professor who
also has taught and
conducted programs
in Albania, Belgium,
Ethiopia, Iceland, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan,
Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, and
Slovakia. He has served as a Ford Foundation
fellow at Harvard Law School, is a past presi‑
dent of the criminal justice section of the
Association of American Law Schools, and
is a member of the Pennsylvania Judicial
Independence Commission.
has published more than a dozen books and
more than 70 articles on private international
law, international dispute resolution, and
international legal education.
creates special opportunities for students
through CILE programs, research institutes
in many countries, and his relationships with
government colleagues and with Pitt Law JD
and LLM graduates around the world (noted
above), as well as teaching opportunities for
students to help train students in Bahrain,
Oman, and the United Arab Emirates for
the William C. Vis International Commercial
Arbitration Moot.
Elena
Baylis
is an associate profes‑
sor who has taught as
an exchange professor
at Mekelle University
in Ethiopia and conducted field research
in Ethiopia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
has published in the area of postconflict jus‑
tice in transition countries and on the trend
of international involvement in domestic gov‑
ernments following internal armed conflict.
creates special opportunities for students
by administering the law school’s Semester
in D.C. externship program, which allows
JD students to obtain a term’s worth of
academic credit while obtaining practical
experience at a government agency or NGO
in Washington, D.C.
Center for International Legal Education
www.law.pitt.edu/cile
Teresa
Brostoff
is a professor and direc‑
tor of legal writing at
Pitt Law who has served
as a Fulbright scholar
in Belgium and Iceland; a state department
contractor in Kosovo, Serbia, and Ukraine; a
commerce department contractor in Bahrain,
Oman, and the United Arab Emirates; and an
invited lecturer in Japan and Poland, all while
coteaching the U.S. Law & Language Program.
has published two books on legal writing
for law students and numerous articles on
the challenges of teaching legal writing and
research to English as a second language (ESL)
students.
creates special opportunities for students
through her work with overseas law faculties
to identify opportunities for JD students to
work and study overseas and her work in the
law school’s annual U.S. Law & Language
course, offered every July to incoming LLM
students.
has published more than 26 books and 60
articles in the areas of criminal justice and
legal ethics.
creates special opportunities for students
through numerous connections with overseas
study and work opportunities for JD students
and a continued strong connection with LLM
students studying at Pitt Law.
Vivian
Curran
is a professor, a world‑
recognized expert on
comparative law, and
was awarded the Grand
Decoration of Merit in Gold for Services
Rendered to the Republic of Austria for her
work as the U.S. appointee to the Austrian
General Settlement Fund committee for
Nazi‑era property compensation. Curran cur‑
rently meets regularly with a small network of
French and American judges and law profes‑
sors organized by U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Stephen Breyer and Mireille Delmas‑Marty of
the Collège de France to study the internation‑
alization of law.
has published extensively on international
and comparative law in English and French
and has given many talks and taught in those
languages as well as in German. She is the
translator of several legal works in those lan‑
guages to English.
creates special opportunities for students
through the law school’s unique Languages
for Lawyers Program, which offers courses
in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, and
Spanish. She also identifies special guest lecturers through her international contacts to
bring to Pitt Law.
Harry
Flechtner
Bernard
Hibbitts
Jules
Lobel
is a professor and inter‑
nationally recognized
expert on domestic and
international commer‑
cial law. He serves as a national correspondent
for the United States to the United Nations
Commission on International Trade Law
(UNCITRAL) and as the coordinating editor
of the UNCITRAL Digest of Case Law on the
United Nations Convention on the International
Sale of Goods (CISG). He recently recorded lec‑
tures on CISG for the UN Audiovisual Library
of International Law.
is a professor with law
degrees from Canada,
England, and the
United States. He was
a Rhodes scholar and clerked at the Supreme
Court of Canada for Justice Gerald Le Dain.
Hibbitts lectures widely on the impact that
technology has on legal systems.
is a professor and vice
president of the Center
for Constitutional
Rights, where he has
represented numerous clients before the U.S.
Supreme Court and U.S. Courts of Appeals.
He has served as an advisor for foreign gov‑
ernments, including those of Nicaragua and
Burundi, on constitution development.
has published numerous books and articles
on international and domestic contract law.
creates special opportunities for students by
coaching the Pitt Law team in the William
C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration
Moot, which takes place each year in Vienna,
Austria. Pitt teams have participated in the
moot for 15 years and have enjoyed notable
success, including qualifying for the advanced
rounds of the oral argument competition in
each of the past two years by scoring among
the top 25 percent of participating teams.
Haider Ala
Hamoudi
is an associate professor
who served as program
manager during the Iraq
War for a project man‑
aged by the International Human Rights Law
Institute of DePaul University College of Law
to improve legal education in Iraq. He recently
spent nine months in Iraq advising the Iraqi leg‑
islature on commercial matters as well as partici‑
pating in intensive negotiations conducted by the
Constitutional Review Committee of the Iraqi
legislature—which was responsible for develop‑
ing critical amendments to the Iraq constitution
deemed necessary for Iraqi national reconcilia‑
tion—on behalf of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
has published a book on his experiences in Iraq
and several scholarly articles on Iraqi law, Islamic
law and jurisprudence, and Islamic finance.
creates special opportunities for students by
serving as an advisor to the Pitt Law Philip
C. Jessup International Law Moot Court
Competition team and has worked with the
U.S. Embassy in Iraq to bring the Iraqi Jessup
teams to the United States to observe and compete in the international rounds.
has published in the areas of the influence of
technology on the education and practice of
law and comparative legal history.
creates special opportunities for students
as the creator and editor-in-chief of JURIST,
the Webby Award-winning legal news Web
site, which receives more than 100,000
unique visits a week and employs Pitt Law
JD students as editors, reporters, and staff
members.
Charles
Jalloh
is an assistant pro‑
fessor who served as
legal counsel with the
Canadian Department
of Justice in both its Crimes Against Humanity
and War Crimes sections and the Trade Law
Bureau before accepting a position as the legal
advisor to the Office of the Principal Defender
at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. He
resigned and subsequently went on to serve as
an associate legal officer to the judges of Trial
Chamber I at the UN International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), assisting them
on opinion drafting in leading genocide trials.
has edited and published a book and several
articles on international criminal law and its
application in domestic and regional contexts
in leading peer‑reviewed journals on topics
such as the International Criminal Court and
Africa, universal jurisdiction, and the Special
Court for Sierra Leone.
creates special opportunities for students
by arranging for high-profile speakers, such
as the chief prosecutor of UN ICTR and
the U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes
issues to visit Pitt Law. He also took 11 Pitt
Law students in his seminar on international
criminal law to spend a week in Arusha,
Tanzania, at ICTR. Two of his students
subsequently obtained summer internships
at ICTR.
has published extensively on the intersec‑
tion between the war on terror and human
rights and the impact of international law on
domestic foreign policy in the United States.
creates special opportunities for students
through his human rights seminars, which
allow JD and LLM students to assist with the
drafting and preparation of cases scheduled
for argument before the U.S. Supreme Court
and U.S. Courts of Appeals.
Alan
Meisel
is the Dickie,
McCamey & Chilcote
Professor of Bioethics,
a professor of law and
psychiatry, director of Pitt’s Center for
Bioethics and Health Law, director of Pitt
Law’s Health Law Certificate Program, and
founder and director of the Master of Studies
in Law program. He has been a fellow of the
Hastings Center, the assistant director of legal
studies for the President’s Commission for the
Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and
Biomedical and Behavioral Research, a mem‑
ber of the Ethics Working Group of the White
House Task Force on Health Care Reform,
and a consultant to the Congressional Office
of Technology Assessment on Life‑Sustaining
Technologies and Institutional Protocols for
Health Care Decision Making.
has published extensively on end‑of‑life issues
in medical care and their ethical and legal
implications.
creates special opportunities for students
through the Health Law Certificate Program,
and by identifying and developing positions
for students both domestically and internationally that focus on global health issues.
continued
Janice
Mueller
is a professor with
extensive experience
in patent and intellectual property work as
a patent agent, federal judicial clerk, patent
attorney, chemical engineer, and trial attorney
for the Civil Division of the U.S. Department
of Justice. She has taught in Sweden, the
Netherlands, Spain, and Mexico in addition
to numerous U.S. law schools and chairs the
Expert Advisory Committee for intellectual
property issues of the international nonprofit Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research.
has published extensively on patent law,
including international intellectual property,
and has extensively researched the Indian patent law system.
creates special opportunities for students
through her roles as director of the Intel­
lectual Property and Technology Law
Certificate Program and as faculty advisor
to the patent and copyright intellectual
property moot court teams at Pitt Law.
Ann
Sinsheimer
is a professor of legal
writing who has cotaught U.S. Law &
Language as a Fulbright
scholar in Belgium and Iceland, a state department contractor in Serbia and Ukraine, a
U.S. Commerce Department contractor in
Oman and the United Arab Emirates, and
a consultant for U.S. Steel in Slovakia and
for USAID in Ethiopia. She has worked at
the University of Oxford’s Wellcome Trust
Centre for Human Genetics and has taught
ESL in Japan.
has published on the implications of language and law, legal education, and the challenges of teaching legal writing and research
to ESL students.
School of Law
Center for International Legal Education
318 Barco Law Building
3900 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
International opportunities also are created by
the following faculty members:
Kevin Ashley
Anthony Infanti
is a professor, a leading expert on the
computer modeling of legal reasoning and
cyberspace legal issues, and past president of
the International Association for Artificial
Intelligence and the Law.
is a professor, a leading critical tax theorist,
and international tax law scholar.
Douglas Branson
is the W. Edward Sell Professor of Business
Law and a pioneer in the field of comparative
corporate governance who has taught that
subject across the globe.
Pat Chew
is a professor and an expert in alternative
dispute resolution and the role of race and
gender law in dispute resolution.
Mirit Eyal-Cohen
is an assistant professor and a multiculturally trained scholar in the areas of tax law
and policy.
Michael Madison
is a professor; director of the Intellectual
Property and Technology Law Certificate
Program; and an intellectual property law,
law and the Internet, and law and technology scholar.
Rhonda Wasserman
is a professor, a civil procedure and conflict
of laws scholar who has taught in China,
and a member of the advisory board for
the British Institute of International and
Comparative Law’s Project on the Effect in
the European Community of Judgments in
Civil and Commercial Matters: Recognition,
Res Judicata, and Abuse of Process.
David Harris
is a professor and a nationally
renowned expert on racial profiling,
search and seizure, and proper
policing practices at home
and abroad.
creates special opportunities for students
through her work with overseas law faculties
to identify opportunities for JD students to
work and study overseas and her work in the
law school’s annual U.S. Law & Language
course, offered every July to incoming LLM
students.
www.law.pitt.edu/cile
The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution. Published in cooperation with the Department of University Marketing Communications. UMC74638-0810
Programs and Activities
CILE Partners with Pitt Schools to Offer Global
Perspectives on Global Health Issues
CILE joined the University of Pittsburgh Center for Global Health and the University of Pittsburgh Department of Family Medicine to
sponsor "Pros and Cons of Faith-Based Initiatives in Addressing Health Vulnerabilities in Southern Africa: Legal and Ethical Issues," a
two-hour panel on September 3, 2009. Arranged by Pitt Law Professor Vivian Curran, the program included six visiting academics from
Zambia, ranging from professors at the University of Zambia Schools of Agriculture, Medicine, and Nursing to the maternal health director
of the Churches Health Association of Zambia. A U.S. perspective was presented by Pitt Law Professor Vivian Curran, Professor Charles
Jalloh, and Adjunct Professor David Barnard, director of the Institute to Enhance Palliative Care at the University Center for Bioethics
and Health Law, as well as by
Reverend Ronald Peters, associate professor and director of
the Metro-Urban Institute at
the Pittsburgh Theological
Seminary. The panel discussed faith-based initiatives in Southern Africa from
regional and international
perspectives, including the
legal and ethical implications of church and state
approaches to national health
care issues in different cultures.
Professors David Barnard (center) and Vivian Curran (center right)
David Gill Speaks About Stasi Legacy
in Germany to Students
On October 2, 2009, CILE hosted David Gill, deputy
representative of the Council of the Protestant Church
in Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany and
the European Union, to speak on “The Secret Police
of the Former East Germany: Their Dissolution and
Legacy.” This program was presented in cooperation
with CILE Advisory Board member and K&L Gates
partner David Murdoch and the Pittsburgh Eric
M. Warburg Chapter of the American Council on
Germany. Gill recounted how he was first among the
private citizens of East Germany to make his way to David Gill speaks to students on
the Stasi headquarters following the fall of the Berlin “The Secret Police of the Former
East Germany: Their Dissolution
Wall in order to try to preserve the records found and Legacy.”
there. He spent the next several years working with the
newly reunified German government creating a system that allowed private citizens access
to the Stasi files and assisted in holding individuals criminally responsible for spying on
their fellow citizens. The event was part of International Week 2009, sponsored by Pitt’s
Global Studies Program in the University Center for International Studies with a number
of student and community organizations.
Pitt Law Alumni
Speak on
Nontraditional
International Law
Careers
Continuing its tradition of bringing Pitt Law
alumni back to speak to JD students, CILE
invited Elizabeth Shackelford (JD ’06) on
August 28, 2009, and Jeffrey Koncsol (JD
’03) on September 18, 2009, to talk about
their experiences in obtaining nontraditional
international law careers. Shackelford, formerly an associate at Covington and Burling
in Washington, D.C., and before joining
the U.S. Department of State as a foreign
service officer, was a program officer at the
international development firm Booz Allen
Hamilton. Koncsol is an associate with the
Iraqi Law Alliance.
13
Programs and Activities
Sir David Edward Delivers 18th Annual
McLean Lecture on World Law
(L to R) Dr. Alberta Sbragia, Sir David Edward, and Professor Ronald A. Brand at the 18th
Annual McLean Lecture on World Law
14
Sir David Edward, former judge of the
European Court of Justice and professor
emeritus at the University of Edinburgh
School of Law, delivered the 18th Annual
McLean Lecture on World Law on October
22, 2009. Edward spoke on “Nationalism,
Constitutionalism, and the Future of the
European Union,” addressing the upcoming changes to the European Union in
light of the Treaty of Lisbon. The Annual
McLean Lecture is cosponsored by Global
Solutions Education Fund-Pittsburgh,
which was founded as the World Federalist
Organization by Mac McLean, a longtime
proponent of global government and legal
education. During his visit, Edward also
met with the 2009 Pitt Law Nordenberg
Fellows, Richard Grubb, Amelia Mathias,
and Kerry Ann Stare.
CILE Rule of Law Lecture Series Continues
with LLM Class of 2010
Members of the Pitt Law LLM Class of 2010 shared their perspectives on rule of law in their home countries on March 4 and April 8,
2010. Those speaking were Elina Aleynikova (Russia), Zana Berisha (Kosovo), Olga Buritica (Colombia), Nora Dekaidek (Palestine),
Olga Dmytriyeva (Ukraine), Maria Jreissati (Lebanon), Kujtesa Nezaj (Kosovo), and Myroslava Savchuk (Ukraine). Each of them
addressed some of the past struggles and future challenges to the rule of law in their countries.
CILE Partners with Student
Organizations to Emphasize
International Law
On November 17, 2009, CILE, in cooperation with the Black Law Students' Association,
Christian Legal Society, International Law Society, and Jewish Law Students' Association,
recognized International Human Trafficking Week by hosting a documentary video detailing current human trafficking problems. CILE Assistant Director Wes Rist followed the
video with a discussion about modern slavery and human trafficking and the current
international legal responses to the problem.
CILE sponsored two lectures in cooperation with the Muslim Law Student’s Association.
On February 25, Vjosa Osmani, advisor on legal and international affairs and chief of staff
to the president of Kosovo, spoke on “Kosovo & International Law Challenges.” Osmani
addressed the issues facing the fledgling nation in light of the then-pending International
Court of Justice advisory opinion and the challenges in participating in the international
legal system when Kosovo’s legal status was still undetermined. Osmani is a 2005 Pitt Law
LLM graduate and current JSD student. On March 25, Bernard Freamon, professor at
Seton Hall University School of Law, spoke on “Straight, No Chaser: Slavery, Abolition,
and the Modern Muslim Mind.” Freamon addressed Islamic law and slavery in ancient
and modern times.
CILE and U.S.
Embassy in Iraq
Partner for Iraqi
Jessup Visit
For the third year, CILE worked with
Associate Professor Haider Ala Hamoudi
and the U.S. Embassy in Iraq to host
the Iraqi National team at the Philip C.
Jessup International Law Moot Court
Competition. The team traveled to
Pittsburgh following the international
rounds in Washington, D.C., where
they met with Pitt Law students who
also participated in the Jessup and Niagara
moot court competitions. They also
met with International Law Librarian
Linda Tashbook and Pitt Law Professor
Vivian Curran.
Programs and Activities
Rule of Law Conference hosted by EUCE and CILE
On May 6 and 7, 2010, the University of Pittsburgh’s European Union Center of Excellence (EUCE), Pitt Law’s Center for International
Legal Education (CILE), and the Institute for European Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel cosponsored a conference on “Promoting
the Rule of Law: Cooperation and Competition in the EU-U.S. Relationship.” The conference focused primarily on three topics: defining the rule of law; whether external programs influence a country’s internal development of the rule of law; and the role of civil society
and legal education in developing the rule of law.
Participants included representatives from, among others, the
Council and Commission of the European Union, the European Court
of Justice, the Council of Europe, the International Bar Association,
the ABA Section of International Law, the U.S. Army JAG Corps, the
Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, the U.S. Agency for International
Development, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the U.S. Department of
Commerce, as well as four members of the Pitt, Virginia, and WVU
law faculties. According to CILE director and conference coordinator
Professor Ronald A. Brand, “The conference was unique in both the
effort to identify the various rule of law programs sponsored by the
U.S. and the EU and to consider the benefits of coordinating those
programs.” The following papers from the conference will be published
Conference speakers at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater
in volume 72, issue 2, of the University of Pittsburgh Law Review:
Wade Channell, “Grammar Lessons
Learned: Dependent Clauses, False
Cognates, and Other Problems in
Rule of Law Programming”
Mark Ellis, “Toward a Common
Ground Definition of the Rule
of Law Incorporating Substantive
Principles of Justice”
15
Ricardo Gosalbo-Bono, “The
Significance of the Rule of Law and
Its Implications for the European
Union and the United States”
Esa Paasivirta, “Can External
Programmes Influence Internal
Development of the Rule of Law?”
Participants at the Rule of Law Conference
One Year ... For a Lifetime
LLM students at Pitt Law aren’t simply pushed into classrooms and left to
find their own way. Instead, CILE works closely with each student, providing
personalized attention and careful advice on course selection, study methods,
and social integration. CILE also arranges professional and social opportunities that ensure for each student a year of experiences and memories that will
last a lifetime. And CILE plans to be a part of that lifetime.
The impact of an LLM degree at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law
doesn’t end with graduation and a diploma. Our alumni stay involved regularly
with CILE programs, whether they are returning as guest lecturers, visiting
scholars, or visiting professors, or providing opportunities for Pitt Law JD
students through summer internships and study abroad programs. Many also
participate in CILE programs and activities held around the world, including
the Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, professional legal training
in Eastern Europe, or Pitt Law student visits to UN tribunals.
Victor Mosoti (LLM ’01), special legal advisor at the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization, returns to Pitt as the 17th
Annual McLean Lecturer on World Law.
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
16
During the 2009−10 academic year, the
Center for International Legal Education
awarded funds exceeding $93,000 to the
following students for a variety of activities:
Adediran Olugbenga Adekanye (Class
of 2010): spring 2010 trip to the UN
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
in Arusha, Tanzania, as part of the law
school’s International Criminal Law seminar
Marie Brown (Class of 2012): summer
2010 study at the Howard University School
of Law Comparative and International Law
program in Cape Town, South Africa, and
2010 International Humanitarian Law
Workshop hosted by Santa Clara University
School of Law in Santa Clara, Calif.
Ingrid Burke (Class of 2011): spring
2010 trip to the UN International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania,
as part of the law school’s International
Criminal Law Seminar
Holly Christie (Class of 2011): spring
2010 trip to the UN International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania,
as part of the law school’s International
Criminal Law Seminar, and summer 2010
internship at the Office of the Registry of
the UN International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania
Marc Coda (JD ’10), Richard Grubb
(JD ’10) and Kerry Ann Stare (JD ’10):
traveled to Al Ain, United Arab Emirates,
in October 2009 and February 2010
and to Vienna, Austria, as part of the
Department of Commerce Commercial
Law Development Program sponsorship
of Arabian Peninsula teams at the 2010
Willem C. Vis International Commercial
Arbitration Moot
Jonathan Cohen (Class of 2012): summer 2010 study at the Touro Law Center
Ancient History and Modern Law program
in Jerusalem, Israel
Megan Collelo (Class of 2011): spring
2010 trip to the UN International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania,
as part of the law school’s International
Criminal Law Seminar
Patrice Collins (Class of 2011): summer 2010 internship at the United Nations
Office of Legal Counsel in New York City,
New York
Brittany Conkle ( JD ’10): 2010
International Humanitarian Law Workshop
hosted by Santa Clara University School
of Law in Santa Clara, Calif., and spring
2010 trip to the UN International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania,
as part of the law school’s International
Criminal Law Seminar
Amy DiBella (JD ’10): spring 2010 trip
to the UN International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, as part
of the law school’s International Criminal
Law Seminar
Andrew Disipio (Class of 2011): summer 2010 internship at the European Court
of Auditors in Luxembourg
McKean Evans (JD ’10), Richard Kyle
(Class of 2011), Kristine Long (Class
of 2011), and Amelia Mathias (Class
of 2011): participation in the 2010 premoot competitions in Belgrade, Serbia,
and Zagreb, Croatia, and the Willem C.
Vis International Commercial Arbitration
Moot in Vienna, Austria
Amanda Fisher (JD ’10): spring 2010
trip to the UN International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania,
as part of the law school’s International
Criminal Law Seminar
William Fisher (JD ’10): spring 2010
study at the Temple University School of
Law program in Tokyo, Japan
Nicholas Fiske (JD ’10): spring 2010
trip to the UN International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania,
as part of the law school’s International
Criminal Law Seminar
Emma Founds (Class of 2011): spring
2010 trip to the UN International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania,
as part of the law school’s International
Criminal Law Seminar
Torrey Hullum (Class of 2012): summer 2010 internship at the Association
for Research into Crimes Against Art in
Amelia, Italy
Andrew Jenkins (Class of 2011): spring
2010 study at the Pace Law School program
in London, England
G’nece Jones (Class of 2011): 2009−10
LLM study at the University of Nottingham
School of Law in Nottingham, England
B. Rhiannon Kelso (Class of 2012):
summer 2010 internship at the U.S. Agency
for International Development Kosovo
Private Enterprise Program in Prishtina,
Kosovo
Morgan Kronk (Class of 2011): summer 2010 internship at the European
Commission Legal Service in Brussels,
Belgium
Richard Kyle (Class of 2011): summer
2010 internship at Rödl & Partner law firm
in Nuremberg, Germany
Continued on page 17
More than 60 people were a part of the 2010 Pitt Vis consortium in Vienna, Austria.
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
Adrienne Lester (Class of 2011): summer 2010 internship at the Institute for
European Studies in Brussels, Belgium
Amelia Mathias (Class of 2011): summer 2010 internship at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in Prishtina, Kosovo
Dustin McDaniel (Class of 2012):
summer 2010 internship at RB Abogados
(Law Offices of Enrique R. del Bosque) in
Mexico City, Mexico
Megan McKee (Class of 2012): summer 2010 internship at the Social Justice
Committee of Montreal in Montreal,
Canada
Sarah Miley (Class of 2012): summer
2010 study at the Institute in International
Commercial Law & Dispute Resolution in
Zagreb and Zadar, Croatia
Andrew Morgan (Class of 2011): spring
2010 trip to the UN International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania,
as part of the law school’s International
Criminal Law Seminar, and summer 2010
internship at the Office of the Registry at
the UN International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania
Steven Salas (Class of 2011): summer
2010 internship at ZhongQiGuoSheng Law
Firm in Beijing, China
Lilianne Snyder (Class of 2012): summer 2010 study at the American University
Washington College of Law program at The
Hague, the Netherlands
Jeffrey Stacko (Class of 2012): summer
2010 study at the Loyola University New
Orleans College of Law Vienna Summer
Legal Studies program in Vienna, Austria
Kimberly Stains (Class of 2012): summer 2010 internship at the Universidad
Anáhuac in Mexico City, Mexico
Robert Stein (Class of 2012): summer
2010 study at the Institute in International
Commercial Law & Dispute Resolution in
Zagreb and Zadar, Croatia
Anne Thibedeau (Class of 2011): summer 2010 internship at the Office of the
Legal Advisor to the President in Prishtina,
Kosovo
Andrew Vogeler (Class of 2012): summer 2010 internship at the Max Planck
Institute for Comparative and International
continued
Private Law in Hamburg, Germany,
and summer study at the Institute in
International Commercial Law & Dispute
Resolution in Zagreb and Zadar, Croatia
Jacqueline Walker (Class of 2011):
summer 2010 internship at 13 Old Square
Chambers in London, England
Kimberly Waller (Class of 2011):
summer 2010 internship at the Diaspora
Women’s Initiative in Dublin, Ireland
Juanshu (Jessica) Wang (JD ’10): spring
2010 trip to the UN International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania,
as part of the law school’s International
Criminal Law Seminar
Margaret Wilson (Class of 2011):
2009−10 LLM study at Utrecht University
in Utrecht, the Netherlands
Haley Wojdowski (Class of 2012):
summer 2010 study at the Institute in
International Commercial Law & Dispute
Resolution in Zagreb and Zadar, Croatia
Samuel Wolbert (Class of 2011): summer 2010 internship at the Free Legal Advice
Centre of Ireland in Dublin, Ireland
Herbert Wolfe III (Class of 2011):
2009−10 LLM study at the National
University of Singapore Faculty of Law in
Singapore
Patrick Yingling (Class of 2011):
summer 2010 study at the University of
Bologna, Italy
Kaitlin Young (Class of 2012): summer
2010 study at the Institute in International
Commercial Law & Dispute Resolution in
Zagreb and Zadar, Croatia
Elizabeth Youngkin (Class of 2011):
summer 2010 study at the Institute in
International Commercial Law & Dispute
Resolution in Zagreb and Zadar, Croatia
Other Student Activities
Ingrid Burke (Class of 2011) did a
summer 2010 internship at the Office of
the Legal Advisor to the Prime Minister in
Prishtina, Kosovo.
Jonathan Burns ( JD ’10) completed an LLM in 2009–10 at Utrecht
University School of Law in Utrecht, the
Netherlands.
Richard Carpenter (Class of 2012)
received a tuition remission scholarship from
the University of Pittsburgh Asian Studies
Center for the 2010–11 academic year.
Hyunmyung Choi (Class of 2011) studied at the Fordham University School of Law
2010 summer program in Seoul, Korea.
Ian Clark (Class of 2011) studied at
the Institute in International Commercial
Law & Dispute Resolution in Zagreb and
Zadar, Croatia.
Continued on page 18
Kimberly Stains, Class of 2012, during her summer internship in Mexico City, Mexico
17
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
Stephen Doherty II (Class of 2012)
studied at the Institute in International
Commercial Law & Dispute Resolution in
Zagreb and Zadar, Croatia.
Andrew Ferguson (Class of 2012)
studied at the Institute in International
Commercial Law & Dispute Resolution
summer 2010 program in Zagreb and
Zadar, Croatia.
Carl Frankovitch (Class of 2012) studied at the Duquesne University School of
Law and China University of Political
Science and Law summer 2010 program
in Beijing, China.
Yibo Ge (Class of 2012) did a summer 2010 internship at the Office of the
Attorney General in Palau.
Joshua Hoffman (Class of 2012) studied at the Ohio State University Moritz
College of Law summer 2010 program in
Oxford, England.
18
Andrew Hunter (Class of 2011) studied
at the Institute in International Commercial
Law & Dispute Resolution in Zagreb and
Zadar, Croatia.
Valerie Kamin (Class of 2012) studied
at the Ohio State University Moritz College
of Law summer 2010 program in Oxford,
England.
Allison Kant (Class of 2011), Morgan
Kronk (Class of 2011), Steven Salas (Class
of 2011), and Marko Zivanov (LLM ’08,
JD ’10) participated in the 2010 Philip
C. Jessup International Law Moot Court
Competition in Washington, D.C.
continued
Anna Kavalauskas (MSL ’10) did a
summer 2010 internship at the University
of Augsburg, in Augsburg, Germany.
Kirk Knutson (Class of 2012) studied at
the Cornell University School of Law 2010
summer program in Paris, France.
Kristine Long (Class of 2011) did
a summer 2010 internship at the U.S.
Department of Commerce Commercial
Law Development Program in Washington,
D.C.
Yajuan Lu (Class of 2012) did a summer
2010 internship at the Peking University
Health Science Center in Beijing, China.
Charles Martinez (Class of 2012) studied at the Ohio State University Mortiz
College of Law summer 2010 program in
Oxford, England.
Kelly Mistick (Class of 2012) did
a summer 2010 internship at the U.S.
Department of Defense Uniformed Services
University of the Health Sciences’ Center
for Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance
Medicine in Bethesda, Md.
Sarah Paulsworth (Class of 2012) did
a summer 2010 internship at the U.S.
Department of State Critical Languages
Program in Baku, Azerbaijan, and received
a Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship
from the University of Pittsburgh Center for
Russian and East European Studies to study
Turkish. The fellowship covers tuition and
a stipend for the 2010–11 academic year.
JD and LLM students mingle at the second
annual JURIST/LLM social mixer.
Jamey Quinn (Class of 2011) completed
an LLM in 2009–10 at the University of
Groningen Faculty of Law in Groningnen,
the Netherlands.
Brad Sacavage (Class of 2012) did a
summer 2010 internship at the Office of
the Attorney General in Palau.
Silpa Swarnapuri (Class of 2012) did
a summer 2010 internship at the Office of
the Attorney General in Palau.
Maurine Vogelsang (Class of 2012) did
a summer 2010 internship at Westinghouse
Electric Sweden, in Västerås, Sweden.
Jaqueline Walker (Class of 2011) studied at the Pace Law School spring 2010
program in London, England.
Patrick Yingling (Class of 2011) studied at Bucerius Law School in fall 2009 in
Hamburg, Germany.
Alumni News
Nicole B. (Breland) Aandahl (JD ’01)
married Casey P. Aandahl on October 24,
2009. She also was awarded a National
Security Fellowship from the Maxwell
School at Syracuse University in Syracuse,
N.Y.
Noora Al Shamlan (LLM ’08) started
her SJD program at Indiana University’s
Maurer Law School in August 2009. She
has published an article, “Alternative to
Imprisonment: How it is in the U.S. and
Bahrain and the Need for it in Bahrain,” in
the Orient Journal of Law and Social Sciences
in August 2009.
Paul Amato (JD ’93) is now a defense
policy advisor to the U.S. Senior Civilian
Representative in Regional Command
(East) in Bagram, Afghanistan.
Luz María Cárdenas Arenas (LLM ’01)
is now an adjunct faculty member teaching
intellectual property law at the Universidad
Panamerica Law School in Guadalajara,
Mexico.
Alex Braden (JD ’07) and Shannon
(Lack) Braden (JD ’07) were married in
Philadelphia, Pa., on July 17, 2010. They
met in former CILE Assistant Director
Continued on page 19
Alumni News
Mark Walter’s Comparative Law Seminar.
McKean Evans (JD ’10) is now a judicial
clerk for the Honorable Robert L. Boyer at
the Court of Common Pleas of Venango
County, Pa.
Ellen Freeman ( JD ’99) is now of
counsel to K&L Gates in Pittsburgh. She
was reelected as chair of the American
Immigration Lawyer’s Association (AILA)
Chapter for Pittsburgh and West Virginia,
and she was appointed to the AILA
National Committee as vice chair in charge
of business immigration CLEs.
Marco Gardini (LLM ’97) and his wife,
Frencesca, celebrated the birth of their
second son, Frencesco, on September 25,
2009.
Mary Gibson ( JD ’08) took time
off from her position as staff attorney at
Southwestern Pennsylvania Legal Services
Inc. to campaign for British Labour MP
Jon Trickett in the United Kingdom in
May 2010.
Daniel Giovannelli (JD ’08) is now
the Executive Director of Global Solutions
Education Fund -Pittsburgh.
Scott Jablonski (JD ’04) is now of counsel to Bernstein Osberg Braun & de Moraes
in Miami, Fla.
Peter Kaldes ( JD ’01) is legislative
counsel to U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow
(D-MI) in Washington, D.C.
Evelyn W. Kamau (LLM ’02) was
promoted to appeals counsel at the UN
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
in Arusha, Tanzania.
Sven Kill (LLM ’01) and his wife, Kate,
celebrated the birth of their first child, Adir,
on June 30, 2010.
Masami Kittaka (LLM ’08) is now
an associate at the Toranomon Law and
Economics Offices in Tokyo, Japan.
Amelia (Kuschel) Knollman (LLM ’08)
and her husband, Friedrich, celebrated the
birth of their second daughter, Viktoria Julie
Charlotte, on December 5, 2009.
Santy Kouwagam (LLM ’08) married
Patrick Fitzsimmons on October 25, 2009,
in Indonesia. She is now an international
litigation and commercial transactions lawyer at Lucas, S.H. & Partners in Indonesia.
continued
Sandy Kunvatanagarn (JD ’08) is now
a rule of law specialist for the International
Rescue Committee. She works with the
UN Office of the High Commissioner for
Refugees in a refugee camp on the ThailandBurma border.
Natasa Lalatovic (LLM ’08) passed the
Serbian bar exam in June 2010.
Renee Martin-Nagle (JD ’84) received
her LLM in environmental law (highest honors) from George Washington
University Law School in May 2010.
David Meiler (LLM ’01), partner and
head of Felsberg e Associados’ Oil and Gas
Department, recently negotiated a oneyear contract between U.S. oil exploration
company Pride International Inc and OGX
Petróleo e Gás, an exploration and production company in Brazil, to start drilling to
depths of up to 1,500 meters with projected
income returns of around $71 million USD.
Ginny Nagy (JD/MPH ’06) is a program manager for the Center for Disaster
and Humanitarian Assistance Medicine at
the Uniformed Services University of the
Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.
Kujtesa Nezaj-Shehu (LLM ’10) married Ylber Shehu on August 4, 2010, in
Prishtina, Kosovo.
Maryam Nihayath (LLM ’08) and her
husband, Ali Thoufeeq, celebrated the
birth of their first child, Ian Ali, on April
13, 2010.
Vjosa Osmani (LLM ’05) and Luljeta
Plakolli (LLM ’06), in cooperation with
two other Kosovar lawyers, opened their
own law firm, First Legal Solutions, in
Prishtina, Kosovo.
Alejandro Osuna (LLM ’98) published
an article on the continued misinterpretation of the CISG by Mexican courts in the
Mexican Institute of Legal Research at the
National Autonomous University of Mexico
in Mexico City, Mexico.
Melissa Pansiri (JD ’08) is now an attorney-advisor at the U.S. Customs and Border
Protection Office of International Trade.
Joanna (Jing) Peng (LLM ’08) will
join Reed Smith in Pittsburgh as an associate upon her completion of a Pitt Law JD
in 2011.
Jennifer Rellis ( JD ’06) is now an
asylum officer with the Department of
Homeland Security’s Office of Refugee,
Asylum, and International Operations.
Elizabeth Shackelford (JD ’06) is now
a political officer with the Foreign Service
for the U.S. Department of State.
Justine Stefanelli (JD ’05) is now the
Maurice Wohl Research Fellow in European
Law in the Bingham Centre for the Rule of
Law at the British Institute of International
and Comparative Law in London, England.
Bujar Taho (LLM ’07) and his wife,
Marsela, celebrated the birth of their first
daughter, Katelin, on January 8, 2010.
Taho also joined the UN Development
Programme as project manager for a threeyear program on empowering vulnerable
communities in Tirana, Albania.
Chuan Tang (LLM ’10) is now a lawyer
at the Nanning City Legal Aid Center in
Nanning City, China.
Sarah (Cowart) Vuong (JD ’08) is now
a law clerk for the Department of Justice
Executive Office for Immigration Review
in the San Francisco, Calif., Immigration
Court.
Gregory Walker (JD ’06), an associate
at Linklaters LLP in Frankfurt, Germany,
moved to London, England, in June 2010
for a six-month secondment in the equity
capital markets legal team at Deutsche
Bank.
Kaia Wildner (LLM ’07) and her husband celebrated the birth of twins, Lara and
Tom, in February 2009.
Lyubomir Zabov (LLM ’07) is now a
junior associate with Tabakov, Tabakova
& Partners law firm in Bulgaria. He published the article “International Trade,
Direct Taxation, and Bilateral Tax Treaties:
Should There Be a Change? Is the Inclusion
of a Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN)-Type
Clause in Bilateral Tax Treaties a Plausible
Solution?” in the International Journal of
Private Law in January 2010.
Sergii Zheka (LLM ’09) is now an associate at Avellum Partners in Kiev, Ukraine.
Emily (Qing) Zou (LLM ’09) is now a
lawyer at Concord & Partners in Beijing,
China.
19
Faculty Activities
20
Professor Elena Baylis participated in a
workshop on International Law Compliance
and Human Rights Indicators at Arizona
State University’s Center for Transnational
Law and Regulatory Governance on
January 8, 2010. She spoke on “Empirical
Approaches to International Law” at the
American Society of International Law’s
Annual Meeting on March 25, 2010. She
published “Outsourcing Investigations” in
the UCLA Journal of International Law and
Foreign Affairs in 2009.
Professor Ronald A. Brand and thirdyear students Marc Coda, Kerry Ann Stare,
and Rick Grubb traveled to Al Ain, United
Arab Emirates (UAE), from October 1–6,
2009, to provide training to students at the
UAE University College of Law in preparation for their participation in the 2010
Vis International Commercial Arbitration
Moot. The training is funded by the U.S.
Department of Commerce Commercial
Law Development Program. On October
9, Brand presented a U.S. perspective on
the new European Union regulation on
the law applicable to contractual obligations at a conference on the regulation held
at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. His
paper will be published in a book edited
by Professor William Binchy and John
Ahern of Trinity College School of Law. On
October 16–17, Brand participated as an
invited observer in the Chicago meeting of
the Drafting Committee appointed by the
National Conference of Commissioners on
Uniform State Laws to prepare a Uniform
International Choice of Court Agreements
Act. On October 18, Brand was a member
of a panel discussing federalism issues in
the implementation of The Hague Choice
of Court Convention at the meeting in
Washington, D.C., of the Secretary of
State’s Advisory Committee on Private
International Law. On October 23, he
cochaired a panel on “Federalism Issues in
the Implementation of Private International
Law Treaties” at the International Law
Weekend held in New York City, where
he also participated in the annual meeting of the Executive Committee of the
American Branch of the International
Law Association. His chapter, “Consent,
Validity, and Choice of Forum Agreements
in International Contracts,” was published in Liber Amicorum Hubert Bocken
541–553 (I Boone, I. Claeys, & L. Lavrysen,
eds., Die Keure, 2009).
On January 24, 2010, Brand spoke to
alumni of the Open Society Institute’s (OSI)
Palestinian Rule of Law program at their
reunion conference in Amman, Jordan,
on the importance of the development of
rule of law of graduates of U.S. LLM programs. He also joined OSI staff members
in Ramallah, Palestine, to interview candidates for 2010–11 Palestinian Rule of Law
fellowships for study in LLM programs at
U.S. law schools. On February 6–14, Brand
was in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates, where
he and three Pitt Law students assisted the
Vis International Commercial Arbitration
Moot teams of the UAE University, Sultan
Qaboos University of Oman, and the
University of Bahrain in their preparations
for Vis Moot oral argument. On March
3, Brand participated at the offices of the
American Society of International Law in
Washington, D.C., in a discussion led by
Harold Koh, legal advisor, U.S. Department
of State, on the implementation process for
the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of
Court Agreements. On March 5–7, he participated in Chicago in the meeting of the
NCCUSL Drafting Committee for a new
International Choice of Court Agreements
Act. On March 18–April 2, Brand traveled
with Professor Harry Flechtner and the Pitt
Vis Moot team to pre-moots in Belgrade
and Zagreb and the final competition in
Vienna, Austria. In Vienna, the Pitt team
hosted seven other Pitt Law consortium
teams for a final pre-moot and cooperation
during the competition.
On May 6–7, Brand organized and
participated as a presenter in a conference titled, Promoting the Rule of Law:
Cooperation and Competition in the
EU-U.S. Relationship. The conference
was cosponsored by the University of
Pittsburgh European Union Center of
Excellence, the Center for International
Legal Education, and the Institute for
European Studies of the Vrije Universiteit
Brussel. Brand’s presentation was on “The
Role of Civil Society and Legal Education
in Developing the Rule of Law.” On May
18–19, he attended the annual meeting of
the American Law Institute in Washington,
D.C. On June 7–11, Brand taught
courses on Jurisdictional Considerations
for Transnational Transactions Planning and
Transnational Legal Practice and Professional
Responsibility in the University of Bologna/
CILE International Commercial Contracts
Summer School in Ravenna, Italy. On June
18, he participated as a member of the ASIL
Working Group on Implementation of The
Hague Convention on Choice of Court
Agreements in Washington, D.C. On July
26–30, he taught arbitration law in the Pitt/
Touro/Zagreb Institute in International
Commercial Law & Dispute Resolution in
Zadar, Croatia.
Professor Douglas Branson spoke on
“Women on Corporate Boards” on March
2–3, 2010, in Sydney, Australia, at the State
Library in New South Wales under the
auspices of the University of Technology,
Sydney. He presented one of four principal papers at a University of Santa Clara
School of Law conference on Corporations
and International Law on March 13, 2010.
Branson’s paper “Holding Multinational
Corporations Accountable? Achilles' Heels
in Alien Tort Claims Act Litigation” will be
published in the Santa Clara Law Review.
Professor John Burkoff was executive dean of the summer 2010 voyage of
Semester at Sea, which sailed from Halifax
to Barcelona, Civitavecchia (Rome), Naples,
Dubrovnik, Piraeus (Athens), Istanbul,
Alexandria, Casablanca, and back to
Norfolk, Va.
Professor Nancy Burkoff was a visiting
faculty member employed by the University
of Virginia, teaching Law & Society on the
summer 2010 voyage of Semester at Sea,
which sailed from Halifax to Barcelona,
Civitavecchia (Rome), Naples, Dubrovnik,
Piraeus (Athens), Istanbul, Alexandria,
Casablanca, and back to Norfolk, Virginia.
Professor Vivian Curran was part of
a panel on "The Pros and Cons of FaithBased Initiatives for Vulnerable Populations
in Southern Africa," cosponsored by the
University of Pittsburgh Center for Global
Health and Center for International Legal
Education on September 3, 2009. She spoke
on “Law and Memory” as part of a panel
Continued on page 21
Faculty Activities
on Comparative Law and Society at the
annual meeting of the American Society of
Comparative Law. She addressed the transnationalization of law at the University of
Maryland School of Law on October 14.
Curran gave a presentation on “L’affaire
Yahoo!, l’Internet, et le Dialogue des Juges
Nationaux” on November 11, 2009, to
a small group of French and American
judges organized by Justice Stephen Breyer
and Professor Mireille Delmas-Martywas.
She was the featured speaker at the Lion
of Judah Lunch and Learn on May 17,
2010, discussing “Some Reflections on
Contemporary Compensation for Nazi
Property Expropriations and the Rule of
Law.” On June 17, 2010, she was one of
two invited reporters from the United States
at the biennial meeting of the International
Association of Legal Methodology at
the Faculty of Law of the University of
Aix-en-Provence, France, addressing “La
Formation des Juristes aux États-Unis.”
Curran published “Comparative Law and
the Legal Origins Thesis” in the American
Journal of Comparative Law in 2009;
two essays, “Regard d’une Comparatiste”
and “Les Mécanismes de Compétence
Universelle au Service de la Protection de
l’Environnement,” in the book Regards
Croisés Sur l’Internationalisation du Droit:
France-Etats-Unis; and “Recent French
Legal Developments Concerning a Wartime Arrest and Imprisonment Case” in
the Maryland Journal of International Law
in 2010.
Professor James Flannery served as
the copy editor of A Practitioner’s Guide
to the CISG, authored by Camilla Baasch
Andersen, Francesco Mazzotta, and Bruno
Zeller and published by Juris Publishing in
August 2010.
Professor Harry Flechtner spoke at
the Annual Meeting of the Civil Law
Section (Zivilrechtsvergleichung) of the
German Society of Comparative Law
(Gesellschaft für Rechtsvergleichung) in
Cologne, Germany, in September 2009.
He published “Selected Issues Relating
to the CISG’s Scope of Application,” in
the Vindobona Journal of International
Commercial Law and Arbitration in 2009;
"The Globalization of Law as Documented
continued
Professor Harry Flechtner (on Segway) with members of the Pitt Vis consortium in Vienna, Austria
in the Law on International Sales of Goods,"
a chapter in New Private International Law:
More European, More Global in 2010; and
“Service Contracts in the United States
(and from an Economic Perspective): A
Comparative View of the DCFR’s Service
Contract Provisions and Their Application
to Hawkins v. McGee,” in Rechtsvergleichung
und Rechtsvereinheitlichung in 2010.
Flechtner was appointed by the United
Nations Commission on International
Trade Law (UNCITRAL) to be coordinator of its project to update the CISG Case
Law Digest, and he continues to serve as
a national correspondent for the United
States at UNCITRAL. He was an inaugural faculty member of the Institute in
International Commercial Law & Dispute
Resolution, which hosted a four-week summer study program for U.S. and foreign law
students in Zadar and Zagreb, Croatia, in
July 2010.
Professor Haider Ala Hamoudi spoke
on February 8, 2010, at a program sponsored by the New York City Bar Association
titled “Islamic Capital Markets: Past,
Present, & Future.” He addressed the
Legal Directorate of the Iraq Oil Ministry
on “Arbitration and the Arab Tradition” at
Columbia Law School on February 17 at
a program designed to educate the Iraqi
Oil Ministry on international commercial
law and arbitration. Hamoudi presented
on “Islamic Constitutionalism in Iraq:
Rhetoric or Reality” on April 12 at a symposium on Constitutional Democracy and
Islamic Law at the University of St. Thomas
School of Law. He published “The Death
of Islamic Law” in the Georgia Journal of
International & Comparative Law in 2010
and “Identitarian Violence and Identitarian
Politics: Elections and Governance in Iraq”
in the Harvard International Law Journal
Online in June 2010. Hamoudi received
the American Society of Comparative Law’s
Hessel Yntema Prize for the best scholarly
article published in the American Journal
of Comparative Law in 2008 by a scholar
under the age of 40 for his article “The
Muezzin’s Call and the Dow Jones Bell:
On the Necessity of Realism in the Study
of Islamic Law.”
Professor David Harris spoke at a
transnational workshop sponsored by
the Max Planck Institute for Foreign
and International Criminal Law and
Washington & Lee School of Law on the
relationship between police and prosecutors in the United States on April 1–2,
2010. Faculty members from Sweden, the
United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Bosnia
Continued on page 22
21
Faculty Activities
22
and Herzegovina, the Netherlands, and
other countries participated in the workshop. He published “Law Enforcement
and Intelligence Gathering in Muslim and
Immigrant Communities after 9/11,” in
the New York University Review of Law and
Social Change in 2010.
Professor Charles C. Jalloh presented
a paper on “The International Criminal
Court and Africa: Collision Course or
Cooperation?” at the Crimes against
Humanity and War Crimes Section,
Department of Justice, in Ottawa, Canada,
on October 15, 2009, and, on the same
day, served as a commentator for the
R. St. John McDonald Young Scholars
Award at the Conference of Canadian
Council on International Law in Ottawa,
Canada. He was a panelist for the Human
Rights Center and the Baldy Center for
Law and Social Policy at the University at
Buffalo Law School on February 17, 2010,
titled “Special Court for Sierra Leone:
Achieving Justice?” Jalloh was the featured
speaker for a symposium on “Retribution,
Reconciliation, Reparation: Perspectives
on Justice for Darfur” at the Penn State
Dickinson School of Law on April 5.
On April 15, he presented his published
research on “The Role of the International
Criminal Court in Africa” to U.S. government policymakers from various federal
departments at a joint Department of State/
Central Intelligence Agency Conference on
Anticipating and Countering Atrocities in
Africa. He spoke as part of a panel on “Africa
and International Justice: Participant or
Target” at a conference in The Hague in
the Netherlands on April 26, 2010. On
June 19, 2010, Jalloh chaired a meeting in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the legality and
practicality of the November 2009 African
Union proposal for an amendment to the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court. He published “Regionalizing
International Criminal Law?” in the
International Criminal Law Review in 2009;
and “Universal Jurisdiction, Universal
Prescription? A Preliminary Assessment of
the African Union Perspective on Universal
Jurisdiction” in the Criminal Law Forum
in 2010.
continued
Professor Michael Madison gave
the keynote address, “Pittsburgh: Past,
Present, and Future of an American City,”
at the Morgen/Tomorrow: International
Urban Planning Congress in Amsterdam,
the Netherlands, in October 2009. He
spoke on “Constructing Commons in the
Cultural Environment,” at the Oxford
Intellectual Property Seminar Series for
St. Peter’s College at the University of
Oxford in England in May 2010. Madison
served as a visiting professor at the George
Washington University Law School
Summer Intellectual Property Program
at the Munich Intellectual Property Law
Center at the Max Planck Institute for
Intellectual Property, Competition, and Tax
Law during the 2010 summer.
Professor Janice Mueller served as an
instructor in International Intellectual
Property Law at the Baylor University
School of Law Summer Program in
Guadalajara, Mexico, from August 1–15,
2009. She chaired the 11th Annual Meeting
of the Expert Advisory Committee (EAC) to
the Central Advisory Service for Intellectual
Property (CAS-IP) of the Consultative
Group for International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR) in Rome, Italy, on
December 12 and 13, 2009.
Professor Peter B. Oh presented the
collective results of his empirical studies,
“Corporate Disregard in the U.S. and
the U.K.”; at New Views of Corporate
Separateness, an international conference
held at Vanderbilt University Law School
on November 6, 2009.
Linda Tashbook, Pitt Law’s international, foreign, and comparative law librarian, and Marko Zivanov (LLM ’08, JD ’10)
published the only complete and current
guide to Serbian legal research, annotating
all public and private Internet-accessible
sources of Serbia’s codes, legislation, regulations, instructions, explanations, case
reports, and forms.
Professor Rhonda Wasserman attended
a meeting of the Members’ Consultative
Group of the American Law Institute for
the Restatement (Third) of the United
States Law of International Commercial
Arbitration. She taught a three-week course
during the 2010 summer titled Conflict
of Laws in the United States: Theory and
Practice at the Wuhan University School
of Law in Wuhan, China. Wasserman’s
article, “Transnational Class Actions and
Interjurisdictional Preclusion” will be published in the Notre Dame Law Review in
fall 2010.
Professor Rhonda Wasserman (center) with Sissi Wang (left) (Pitt visiting Scholar) and
Professor Yong Gan (LLM ‘09) (right) in Wuhan, China
IINSTITUTE
Commercial
OMMERCIAL L
Law
AW
nstitute IN
in IINTERNATIONAL
nternational C
ESOLUTION
AND
ispute Resolution
and DISPUTE
University
UniversityofofPittsburgh
Pittsburgh School
School of Law,
Law,
Touro
TouroCollege
CollegeJacob
JacobD.
D.Fuchsberg
FuchsbergLaw
LawCenter
Center and
and
University
Universityof
ofZagreb
ZagrebFaculty
Faculty of
of Law
Law
2010 Summer Law Program
Program
2011
23
Summer
Croatia
Summer Law Program in Croatia
July11
12 -- August
August 7,
July
6,2011
2010
Zagreb
Zadar, Croatia
Croatia
Zagreb and Zadar,
www.law.pitt.edu/cile
Nonprofit Org.
US Postage
PAID
Pittsburgh, PA
Permit No. 511
School of Law
Center for International Legal Education
318 Barco Law Building
3900 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening
U.S. LAW & LANGUAGE
Three weeks of intensive interactive lessons
in Pittsburgh
• legal vocabulary
• reading, analyzing, and briefing cases
• understanding statutes
• writing memoranda
• oral presentations
July 18–August 5, 2011
What our former students say:
“The program helped me to adapt to the U.S. law school
and helped me to prepare for my LLM program.”
“Visiting legal institutions such as law firms, judges’
chambers, corporations, and the county jail was one of
the most unique and rewarding aspects of the course.”
“Being forced to learn how to read and brief cases was
important to my career as a lawyer.”
“This program was a great introduction to the U.S. legal
system and how it functions.”
Center for International Legal Education
www.law.pitt.edu/cile